OLD-TIME RUGBY TOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

OLD-TIME RUGBY TOUR.

It is rather amusing to read the following by P. R. Clauss, a Scottish member of the 1891 British Pvugger tour to South Africa, where they won all their 19 games, scoring 224 points to one (a try in the opening game): —

"Had we overdone things from the social point of view? Too many dinners, dances, smokos? Certainly no modern team would dare to indulge in so many festivities, which often lasted far into the night; but modern football is a faster game, and no modern side would have the superiority that was ours. On the whole, the fact that we made no attempt to keep in strict training was all to the good, for it prevented us from becoming utterly stale."

Little did the Britishers dream that only 15 years later the first team of Springboks to go to the Old Country would win 25 out of 2S games, beating Wales (who fielded 11 of the side which downed the 1905 All Blacks) and Ireland, and drawing with England. Scotland beat them o—o, and the only other defeat was in a sea of mud in the final match of the tour, Cardiff winning by tin big margin of 17 —0.